The Doctor
"In the beginning, there is darkness--the emptiness of a matrix waiting for the light. Then a single photon flares into existence. Then another. Soon, thousands more. Optronic pathways connect, subroutines emerge from the chaos, and a holographic consciousness is born." (The Doctor in Author, Author) "'The Doctor'" is the name given by the crew of the Federation starship [[USS Voyager|USS ''Voyager]] to their Emergency Medical Hologram, or EMH. The EMH Mk I is a computer program, with a holographic interface in the form of a Human male doctor. As its name suggests, it was designed to function in emergency situations only. However, on the USS Voyager, the Doctor was forced to become a full-time medic for the crew when the medical staff were killed in the starship's journey into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. This caused his program to be somewhat different from the standard EMH. Background The EMH Mark I, properly known as the Emergency Medical Holographic Program AK-1 Diagnostic and Surgical Subroutine Omega 323, was developed by a team of engineers to be an emergency supplement to the medical team of starships. Only meant to run for a maximum of 1,500 hours, it had little personality, with the apparent objective of getting into a situation and getting the job done as efficiently as possible. It is capable of treating any known injury or disease, programmed with medical knowledge of every member world in the Federation (at least, as of 2371), has the knowledge of 5 million surgical treatments and has the ability to adapt and create new medical treatments. It has a database of spiritual medical treatments believed by Native Americans (VOY: "Cathexis", "Ex Post Facto"). It was created by Lewis Zimmerman (on whom the hologram's appearance and voice are based) on Jupiter Station. Lieutenant Reginald Barclay also worked on the project, testing the EMH's interpersonal skills. (VOY: "Projections") According to the Doctor, his original program was not programmed to cry, bleed, feel pain, feel hunger, sing, or dance. Neither was he programmed with reproductive organs, as he would have no need for them. : Dr. Zimmerman claimed to not have programmed the EMH Mark 1 with sarcasm. But, early episodes of "Voyager" indicate otherwise. It is left unsaid if Reginald Barclay knows anything about this. (VOY "Life Line") Aboard Voyager 2371 On stardate 48308.2, the Doctor was activated by Ensign Harry Kim, to help treat crewmembers injured in the ship's transit into the Delta Quadrant. He quickly established that the Voyager crew would be stuck with him for a while, and he would be the sole provider of medical care aboard the ship. (VOY: "Caretaker") The Doctor's first weeks as full-time medic on the Voyager weren't easy. He had no control over his activation subroutines, so anyone could switch him on or off at will, and he could not turn himself off. Most of the crew considered him merely a computer program, and he in turn was curt and rude to the crew. His thoughts on his duties were less than great, thinking he was used for anything, even small tasks that didn't require him. He was also upset at being the last to find out about more and less important events, such as the Maquis crew joining Voyager, and Neelix and Kes having come aboard. ("Time and Again"). When Voyager was caught in a quantum singularity, the Doctor's imaging processor began to malfunction causing him to shrink. This malfunction was eventually repaired. He also noted that when he created a chroniton-based remedy for Chakotay when his body fell into temporal flux: "Anywhere else, that cure would have won me a prestigious award. Here, it's just another day in the life of an underappreciated EMH." (VOY: "Parallax", "Shattered"). One of his first major achievements onboard Voyager was the holographic lung treatment for Neelix. When Neelix's lungs were removed by a Vidiian, the Doctor divised a plan to use holographic lungs to allow him to remain alive. The Doctor's idea worked, but Neelix was confined to an Isotropic restraint. The Doctor was later able to transplant one of Kes' lungs into Neelix with help from the Vidiians who stole Neelix's lungs. (VOY: "Phage") It was not until Kes volunteered to work with the Doctor as a medical student that the Doctor's attitude and the crew attitude started to change toward each other. Kes was one of the first people to really see the Doctor as a person. She encouraged him to think of himself as another member of the crew, helped him realize the better parts of himself, and began tutoring him on social graces - a skill he would later teach to Seven of Nine. His relationship with the crew became much improved later. Kes was also shocked at the crew's attitude toward the Doctor. She asked Janeway if the Doctor could be treated the same as any crewmember. Janeway agreed and also gave the Doctor control over his deactiviation sequence. (VOY: "Eye of the Needle") The Doctor was sent by Janeway to rescue Kim, Tuvok and Chakotay from a holoprogram that had been invaded by an energy creature, the reasoning being that he alone could not be snatched from the holodeck. Samples of photonic energy had been beamed aboard Voyager, and this energy was part of the alien. Once returned to the alien, the crew was released. (VOY: "Heroes and Demons") An accident aboard Voyager caused the Doctor to confuse illusion with reality. A hallucination of Lieutenant Reginald Barclay, who developed his program's people skills, told the Doctor that he was real- indeed, that he was his own creator, Lewis Zimmerman, and married to a very human Kes- and that he was caught in a hologram of Voyager, with radiation killing him after an accident. He was convinced the only way to escape was to fire a phaser into Voyager's warp core and destroy the simulation. At the last possible second, Chakotay convinced the Doctor that he was about to destroy his own matrix, and the problem was solved, although the Doctor was left intrigued as to why he hallucinated about the nature of his existence rather than simply have his program defences activiated. (VOY: "Projections") He diagnosed that Kes' mating cycle- known to Ocampa as the elogium- had been activated by a swarm of space aliens. During this period, he acted in the role of Kes' father for a foot massage that served as the precursor to the mating ritual, but Kes subsequently decided not to have a child at that point, and in any case her elogium was subsequently ended when they left the aliens' territory. It was subsequently assumed that the elogium was triggered by the aliens, and Kes would still be able to conceive when the normal time came. (VOY: "Elogium") 2372 In 2372, the Doctor didn't consider himself a member of the Voyager crew for quite a while. Upon activating, the Doctor opened communications channels all over the ship for a short period, until Janeway told him not to snoop. (VOY: "Parturition"). In response to criticisms that he was unsympathetic to crewmembers' feeling the effects of 'common' illnesses, he programmed himself with Levodian flu, a twenty-nine hour illness, as an exercise in how a little illness shouldn't be a cause of whining or moaning. Thirty-one hours into the illness, the Doctor was almost fearful, not knowing what was happening or why, and not liking the feeling of not being himself. Kes soon after admitted she modified the program to teach the Doctor a lesson, as it was hardly a real illness if he knew when it was going to end. (VOY: "Tattoo"). When a Vidiian Scientist, Dr. Denara Pel, was beamed aboard Voyager, The Doctor attempted to cure her from the Phage. He transmitted her synapthic pathways into a hologram of her body without the disease, and put her real body in stasis until he could find a cure or a way to extend her life. He grafted a piece of Torres' brain tissue onto Dr. Pel's brain, as Klingon DNA had been found to be resistant to the disease. He also became attracted to Denara, even going so far as to add dancing to his program so he could share the experience with her, and it was later implied (When talking to a Mark II EMH on the Prometheus in "Message in a Bottle") that the two of them had sex before she departed the ship. (VOY: "Lifesigns") :The above information regarding the Doctor and Denara having sex is purely speculative, but since the Doctor said that he engaged in sexual relations at some point prior to "Message in a Bottle", and Denara was the only woman he had been romantically involved with at this point, the evidence suggests that she was the woman in question. While trying to evade the Vidiians, Voyager entered a plasma cloud which caused Voyager and its crew to be duplicated. The doctor on one of the ships delivered Ensign Wildman's baby which died shorty after birth. After one of the ships was invaded by Vidiians, the Doctor on that ship saved that Ensign Wildman's baby, keeping it hidden from the Vidiians until Kim and the baby could board the other Voyager just before his Voyager self destructs, killing the Vidiians and saving the other Voyager (The other Voyager's Kim and child had been killed). (VOY: "Deadlock") The Doctor found a way to separate and restore Tuvok and Neelix after a transporter accident combined them into one creature named Tuvix. However he refused to perform the procedure as he would have to kill Tuvix. Janeway would do the procedure. (VOY: "Deadlock", "Tuvix") The Doctor played an essential part in the defeat of the Kazon led by Seska and Culluh. After the crew was captured and stranded on a primitive planet, the Doctor (who escaped deletion by claiming that he was totally neutral as a hologram, and thus didn't mind whether Kazon or Starfleet were in charge of Voyager) along with Lon Suder helped sabotage the backup phaser couplings. This allowed Tom Paris (who had escaped in a shuttlecraft) and his Talaxian allies to retake the ship and save the crew, after Paris disabled the main phaser couplings and Voyager was damaged when the Kazon attempted to use the backups. (VOY: "Basics, Part I", "Basics, Part II") 2373 In 2373 the Doctor reached the limit of his memory capacity and started to suffer from massive amnesia. When Paris was injured in an alien attack, he was unable to operate to save him because he forgot his medical skills. It soon became clear that his program would disintegrate completely. Another hologram, the Diagnostic Program Alpha-11, was used to find the source of the problem. The only option was to overlay the Doctor's memory onto the Diagnostic Program's. This procedure restored the Doctor, but led to massive memory loss including his recollection of who the crew were and most of the events of the previous two years. Although some memories did seem to have survived intact, it was clear that the Doctor would struggle to regain his hard-won personal skills. (VOY: "The Swarm") He assisted in stopping Henry Starling's plan to steal a timeship that had accidently gone into the past, simultaneously acquiring a mobile emitter that allowed him to go around outside a holodeck. He also helped Janeway rid Voyager of a macrovirus that had attacked Voyager. (VOY: "Future's End, Part I", Future's End, Part II", "Macrocosm") In an attempt to improve himself, the Doctor created EMH program 4C adding personality subroutines to his holomatrix copied from many historical figures, including; Lord Byron, Mahatma Ghandi, Socrates, Marie Curie, and T'Pau. Unfortunately, the Doctor didn't realize that even great historical figures had character flaws and a dark side to their personality. After briefly taking on a split-personality, like "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", he attacked Zahir, an alien that Kes had become fond of. He kidnapped Kes, but after being beamed aboard Voyager, the added subroutines were to be removed and he returned to normal. (VOY: "Darkling") He also created a holodeck family so he could experience Human family values, assuming the name of "Kenneth". Initially, the program was idyllic, but when B'Elanna reprogrammed it to be more 'realistic', the Doctor found it far harder to cope, even contemplating deactivating it for good after his 'daughter' died in an accident. Paris helped the Doctor see that he needed to learn to cope with the negatives as well as the positives in having a family, and the Doctor returned to the program to mourn his daughter's loss with his wife and son. (VOY: "Real Life") 2374 In 2374, when the Borg and Species 8472 were engaged in a war, Voyager became involved. Janeway made a pact with the Borg that in exchange for technology that could defeat Species 8472, they would give Voyager free passage through their space. Kim was injured in an attack by Species 8472. His cells were being destroyed, but the Doctor used nanoprobes to cure him. (VOY: "Scorpion, Part II") He removed most of Seven of Nine's Borg implants after she came aboard Voyager and was severed from the Borg Collective. He restored her back to her Human form, although she was left with a need to regenerate. Like the rest of the crew, he mourned Kes' departure from the ship due to her enhanced abilities, her having easily become his closest friend on Voyager. (VOY: "The Gift") He and Torres answered a distress call and found a hologram named Dejaren alone on a ship. Initially, the Doctor tried to befriend the hologram, who was eager to learn about the Doctor's freedom on Voyager; Dejaren's own crew never treated him as anything other than equipment and kept him constantly confined in one part of the ship. Eventually, the Doctor and Torres discovered that Dejaren had killed the organic crew on the ship, having been driven mad by constantly being treated as a tool. After failing to convince the Doctor that holograms were the higher form of life, Dejaren tried to kill Torres and deactivate the Doctor by stealing his mobile emitter. Fortunately, B'Elanna was able to succesfully deactivate Dejaren by destabilising his holomatrix, leaving the crew with a greater appreciation of the Doctor's personality, no matter how annoying he could be. (VOY: "Revulsion") During his first mission to the Alpha Quadrant, the Doctor was instrumental in establishing contact with Starfleet. When Voyager discovered a Hirogen communications network leading into the edge of the quadrant, the crew attempted to send a message through to a Starfleet vessel within range of the furthest relay. When the message failed to reach the Alpha Quadrant, it was decided to send a hologram, as it was less likely to decompile before reaching its destination, and the Doctor was the only program large enough to have a chance of making it through intact; they lacked the time to write a holographic message. When the Doctor reached the Starfleet vessel, [[USS Prometheus|USS Prometheus]], he soon discovered that the ship had been taken over by Romulans, once again claiming holographic neutrality to escape deletion by the Romulans. The Doctor had to activate the experimental EMH Mark II onboard and, despite the initial conflict between the two (The Mark II thought that the Doctor was defective and obsolete, while the Doctor regarded the Mark II as an arrogant new upstart), the holograms retook control of the vessel, combining the Doctor's own personal experience with the Mark II's detailed knowledge of the ship. Having defeated the Romulan warbirds, Starfleet officers boarded the ship, and the Doctor was subsequently able to speak directly with Starfleet Headquarters and set the record straight about Voyager's disappearance. When the Doctor returned to ''Voyager'', it was with the welcome news that the ship no longer was alone. (VOY: "Message in a Bottle") 2375 In 2375, the Doctor and Harry Kim played an important role in helping to retake the ship from the Hirogen, who were using the crew as prey in holoprograms; the two of them had been left free so that the Doctor could heal the crew and Kim could work on expanding the holodecks. During a Nazi program, he and Neelix persuaded the Klingons in one program to attack the Hirogen and Nazi soldiers. (VOY: "The Killing Game, Part II") In an attempt to save Torres who had an alien creature attached to her, he called up a holoprogram of a Cardassian named Dr. Crell Moset who was one of the foremost exobiologists in the Alpha Quadrant. One of the crew informed Janeway and the Doctor that Moset was accused of war crimes during the occupation of Bajor. Moset wished to kill the creature to remove it, but the Doctor overruled him and removed the creature after a neural shock. He deleted the Moset program from all files. (VOY: "Nothing Human") While doing medical exams on the crew, he found that he had performed surgery on Kim that he did not remember. Janeway and the crew hid the truth from him, until he discovered that during an away mission, Kim and Ensign Ahni Jetal had been seriously injured in an alien attack. Even with Paris helping, the Doctor could only save one of the injured crew, and, since he knew the ensign better, it was Kim he saved, basically allowing Jetal to die. After this, the Doctor started to have a mental breakdown, his program unable to cope with the ethical side-effects of his choice, constantly trying to understand why he 'decided to kill her', and the crew were forced to wipe his memory of the incident. Janeway debated if she should wipe the Doctor's memory once again, but after Seven pointed out that they were essentially treating the Doctor like a piece of equipment rather than a person, Janeway helped him accept his decision, realising that they couldn't give the Doctor the means to work with the crew as an equal only to treat him like a machine when things became difficult. (VOY: "Latent Image") The Doctor tried to teach Seven of Nine social graces, including teaching her how to be pleasant with her fellow crewmates, and how to act on a date. He also discovered her singing voice, and they sang several duets together. The Doctor became attracted to her during their sessions, but refused to admit it to her. When Seven told the Doctor that she no longer needed the lessons in romance because there were no suitable mates aboard, the Doctor was crushed, and returned to the holodeck for a lonely rendition of 'Someone to Watch Over Me'. (VOY: "Someone to Watch Over Me") An artificial intelligence was found on a planet and it was discovered that it is a weapon sent on a mission of destruction. The machine interfaced with the Doctor's matrix and took it over. It threatened Voyager to take it to its target, until it was convinced that its mission had been an accident; its systems had been triggered by a computer error and a target had merely been selected at random. Transferring itself out of the Doctor, it was beamed off Voyager and destroyed other war machines on the same obsolete mission. (VOY: "Warhead") The Doctor undertook the role of the President of Earth in the holoprogram The Adventures of Captain Proton and interacted with a photonic lifeform to convince them to help 'Captain Proton' stop Doctor Chaotica. (VOY: "Bride of Chaotica!") At the end of the year, the Doctor was disabled while investigating the [[USS Equinox|USS Equinox]] by that ship's EMH, who stole his mobile emitter and returned to Voyager posing as him. Later, when he was reactivated by Captain Ransom, his ethical subroutines were deactivated to coerce him into extracting information from Seven of Nine. After being restored to himself and escaping to Voyager, Seven offered to add security measures to his program to prevent further tampering, assuring him that she bore him no ill-will (Indeed, she even 'teasingly' informed him that he was off-key when he sang to her as he tapped into her implants). He also deleted the Equinox EMH upon returning to Voyager, although the Equinox EMH tried unsuccessfully to threaten him with holographic bombs. (VOY: "Equinox, Part I", "II") 2376 In 2376 Captain Janeway awarded the Doctor the Starfleet Medal of Commendation for his part in repelling raiders who wanted to strip Voyager of essential components. This predicament was both incited and resolved successfully thanks to The Doctor's experimentation with introducing daydreaming to his program; the aliens hacked in to the Doctor's program, but due to his daydreams, they were given an exaggerated image of Voyager's defences and were tricked into retreating. In light of his accomplishments, Captain Janeway gave permission for research into the creation of an Emergency Command Hologram, to take command of the ship if the senior staff were ever immobilised. However, he was also left more than slightly embarrassed due to the fact that several of his daydreams featured Janeway, Seven and B'Elanna competing for his affections (As well as one where he painted Seven in the nude), although Janeway assured him that it was only human to fantasize. (VOY: "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy") The Doctor played the part of the village priest in the Fair Haven program. When he tried to free Kim and Paris from the town folks who believed they were evil spirits, he himself was captured and hypnotized. Pressed to reveal his true name, he admitted that he "had not decided on one yet." (VOY: "Fair Haven", "Spirit Folk") When Voyager encountered con artists posing as Janeway, Tuvok and Chakotay in an attempt to make money, the Doctor proved instrumental in the recovery of the stolen property. After tricking Dala, one of the con artists, into boarding the Delta Flyer, the Doctor and Tom Paris knocked her out. The Doctor subsequently altered his holographic matrix so that he resembled Dala, allowing him to confront the other two con artists and learn where they had concealed their stolen property before turning them over to the local authorities. (VOY: "Live Fast and Prosper") While encountering the Qomar, he began singing, which awed the aliens. They had no concept of music. He gave a recital on the planet. They ask him to stay and he considered resigning. However, on another visit to the planet, he discovered that the Qomar have made a superior holoprogram (In their opinion, at least; they were more interested in the scientific variables of the Doctor's singing rather than the singing itself) and that he was not wanted. He returned to Voyager. (VOY: "Virtuoso") The second mission to the Alpha Quadrant occured when Lewis Zimmerman was dying and the Doctor requested to be transmitted back to the Alpha Quadrant to help treat him. While he was at Jupiter Station, Lewis Zimmerman fought the Doctor and his treatment, regarding the Doctor's presence as an unpleasant reminder of his failure with the Mark I as a whole. This caused Reginald Barclay to contact Deanna Troi to help out with the situation. Neither the counselor nor Barclay could make either doctors reach any sort of agreement, as both of them were too stubborn to back down. It wasn't until the Doctor began to decompile that Lewis Zimmerman corrected the error and the two reached a mutual understanding that bordered on a father/son relationship. This was mainly reflected in a conversation where the Doctor admitted that he'd hoped Zimmerman would be proud of his accomplishments if they ever met, and Zimmerman confessing that he was grateful that at least one EMH Mark I was still doing what he had designed them for. The treatment worked, and, shortly before the Doctor left for Voyager, Zimmerman told the Doctor that he could call him next time Voyager was given a chance to communicate with Earth. (VOY: "Life Line") 2377 During the last year of the journey home, the Doctor's program was stolen and sold to a Dr. Chellick who was in charge of a medical hospital on the planet Dinaali. He was appalled at the medical malpractice that was taking place. Only the rich or useful were accord the best medical care, while others were left to die or denied medicine because of their social standing. He, along with a few medical personnel, helped change the situation, although the Doctor suffered an ethical crisis afterwards; in order to convince the staff to change procedure, the Doctor had deliberately infected a member of the hospital staff with a potentially fatal virus, the Doctor being classified as a lower grade patient and forced to change his normal procedure. (VOY: "Critical Care)" Seven of Nine and the Doctor became one when, in order to hide his matrix from aliens who hunted and destroyed holograms, he was downloaded into her cybernethic implants. He experienced human feelings of taste and touch for the first time, although Seven was angered at his 'abuse' of her body while he was in charge; the Doctor felt Seven showed excessive restraint and did not allow for superfluous pleasure, a thing that the Doctor felt was an important part of life. After they returned to Voyager, however, Seven seemed to better understand his point of view, bringing a meal to sickbay and describing the sensations of eating it to the Doctor to allow him to continue to experience it (VOY: "Body and Soul"). Shortly after this, the Doctor discovered that B'Elanna Torres was pregnant with Paris' child. At first, B'Elanna initially tried to reprogram the Doctor to alter the child's DNA and remove the Klingon traits, fearing a repeat of her own upbringing, when her father left because he couldn't handle two Klingon women. After talking with her, Tom Paris eventually convinced B'Elanna that he would love their children no matter what they were like, and he hoped that everyone of them would be just like her. After apologising to the Doctor for her reprogramming of him, B'Elanna asked him to be the child's godfather, and he willingly accepted. (VOY: "Lineage") When Voyager responded to a Hirogen distress call, the crew found that the holograms created as victims for Hirogen training had turned against the hunters. A group of these holograms had escaped to a ship. These holograms later kidnapped the Doctor. He discovered the holograms were just trying to find somewhere where they could live in peace. Eventually agreeing to help them, he escaped with them, taking B'Elanna to help the holograms set up a civilization of their own. However, the holograms, led by Iden, took extraordinary measures to achieve their freedom, even going along with Iden's plan to attack and eventually destroy a mining vessel to obtain and "liberate" fellow holograms. The Doctor's suspicions were confirmed about Iden when he admitted he wished to start a new religion, with him as the "man of light" having freed numerous holograms in various, and often violent, fashion. Eventually, the Doctor had to destroy Iden to protect everyone else. Ashamed by his actions, he volunteered to turn in his mobile emitter, but Janeway assured him that nobody blamed him for doing the human thing and making a mistake in judgement. (VOY: "Flesh and Blood"). When Voyager was abandoned due to tetryon radiation flooding, Captain Janeway activated the ECH for the first time, allowing the Doctor to repair damage to the ship while the crew waited in the escape pods for Voyager to be declared safe once again. The Doctor managed to defend the ship against scavengers and had begun enacting repairs by the time Chakotay and Kim, who had been on an away mission, returned to the ship. The Doctor further demonstrated his command abilities by utilizing a photonic shockwave to disable two Quarren ships. While repairing the ship along with Ensign Kim, they frequently conflicted regarding the impromptu chain of command — while Kim was actually a commissioned officer, the Doctor was programmed with the experiences of renowned commanders throughout history. After it was Harry's strategy that saved the ship from attack when the two of them were the sole crewmembers, the Doctor was later forced to admit he lacked the valuable practical operational experience of other officers, and made peace with Harry before returning to his normal role as the Chief Medical Officer. (VOY: "Workforce, Part I & II"). When the crew were forced to transport alien prisoners to a distant planet, where they would be executed for their crimes, the Doctor was appalled at the death penalty rule enforced by the planet. He also discovered that Iko, one of the patients, had actually been born with a brain defect that left him prone to violence. Using Seven's nanoprobes, the Doctor managed to cure Iko of this defect, effectively restoring Iko's conscience and making him a new person. Tragically, Iko's appeal was rejected, but the Doctor and Seven were able to take some small measure of comfort in knowing they had helped him. (VOY: "Repentence") The Doctor activated his command subroutines again in 2378, in an attempt to rescue Captain Janeway from aliens who had kidnapped her. His holographic matrix altered to allow him to pose as various members of the crew, such as Janeway, B'Elanna and Chakotay, the Doctor was eventually able to evacuate Engineering and subsequently active the ECH program. As the Emergency Command Hologram, the Doctor had the authorization to eject Voyager's warp core; he then tried to free the captain by exchanging the core as ransom. He was able to rescue Janeway and recover the core, but when the excess subroutines inserted by the aliens nearly caused his program to collapse, he made several embarrasing 'deathbed' confessions, including his love for Seven. Having recovered, he subsequently spent a whole week in sickbay out of sheer embarrassment, but was eventually convinced by Janeway to rejoin life on the ship. (VOY: "Renaissance Man") He returned to Earth when Admiral Janeway changed the timeline by going back in the past and helping Voyager return to Earth quicker than the fifteen years it originally took. The Doctor's last action on the ship was to help deliver his goddaughter, Miral Paris while in the Borg transwarp hub. As the crew were contacted by Starfleet ships, the Doctor then alerted Miral's father that "There's someone here who'd like to say 'Hello'.". (VOY: "Endgame') Personal Life Kes Kes and the Doctor bonded considerably. Early in the second year of their journey, the Doctor once commented that he found Kes beautiful, and, when his program began to degrade, prompting holographic hallucinations that he was his own creator Lewis Zimmerman, he became convinced that he was married to a human version of Kes(VOY: "Projections"). However, there was never any romance in their relationship, the Doctor and Kes quickly settling into an almost father/daughter role, with the Doctor teaching Kes as a medical assistant. Kes also trusted the Doctor enough to perform the role of her father in the rolisisin, a foot massage that was a precursor to the mating ritual, commonly marking the change in relationship between father and child as the child became a parent herself (VOY: "Elogium"). It was Kes who persuaded Janeway to give the Doctor control over his own deactivation code, a significant step towards the Doctor being regarded as a full member of the crew rather than a piece of equipment. She helped him become part of the crew and interact with them, as well as helping to restore the Doctor's program when it began to degrade from being online for so long (VOY: "The Swarm"). She was also the person who encouraged the Doctor to tell Denara Pel about his feelings for her, and subsequently worked with Tom Paris to set the Doctor and Denara up on a date in the holodeck (VOY: "Lifesigns"). Tom Paris Although their relationship was often a difficult one, the Doctor also managed to become close friends with Paris, who affectionately referred to the Doctor as 'Doc' on several occasions. One of the key points in their friendship, however, was the fact that it was Paris who helped the Doctor explore one of the most difficult aspects of being a member of the crew; relationships. When the Doctor was initially rejected by Denara Pel, a Vidiian who the Doctor had developed feelings for, he went to Paris for relationship advice, and Paris helped set the Doctor and Denara up on a date in a holoprogram, informing the Doctor that his current approach to women was all wrong (VOY: "Lifesigns"). When the Doctor created a holographic family, and one of his 'children' faced death after an accident, it was Paris who convinced the Doctor to keep running the program rather than shut it down, realising that the Doctor needed to experience the negative aspects of family life if he wanted to develop as a person. (VOY: "Real Life"). After Kes' departure from the ship, Paris was chosen as the Doctor's new medical assistant, serving as Voyager's CMO when the Doctor was unavailable. Although he was initially reluctant, he proved to be highly capable at the job. Over time, it became clear that, although he complained about the role, preferring to pilot the ship, he still wanted the Doctor's respect as a person. This was the main reason Paris resented the Doctor's holonovel about abused holograms, Photons Be Free; he worried that 'his' character, a womaniser called Lieutenant Marseille who cheated on his wife, reflected how the Doctor saw him. Despite this, when the crew arranged a trial to determine the Doctor's legal rights, it was Paris who objected to Tuvok's suggestion that they claim that the Doctor had no right to sell the holonovel in the first place, as they would basically have been admitting that the Doctor was not a real person. (VOY: "Author, Author") Kathryn Janeway As the crew's journey unfolded, Janeway soon found herself even becoming friends with the Doctor, despite initially regarding him as just another hologram. The Doctor also initially disliked Janeway, making several notes on what he regarded as her more 'quiestionable' command decisions before he fully came to regard himself as part of the crew. As the journey unfolded, however, the two of them became closer, particularly when Janeway and the Doctor were the only two crewmembers standing between Voyager and the Macrovirus that was attacking the ship (VOY: "Macrocosm"). As the journey went on, the two of them also began to develop an almost mother/son relationship, with the Doctor often coming to Janeway when he needed personal advice or information about how his program was developing, as well as consolation about any wrong decisions he had made in recent times (Much like Lieutenant Commander Data developed with Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation). It was Janeway who stopped the Doctor deleting the additional subroutines that made him unique when he felt responsible for a death (VOY: "Retrospect"), Janeway who assured the Doctor that none of the crew thought any less of him when he was embarrased about the fantasies created by his daydream program (VOY: "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy"), and Janeway who told the Doctor that none of the crew blamed him for betraying them to try and help a crew of holograms (VOY: "Flesh and Blood"). As well as this, when Janeway faced death after being captured by an alien species, the Doctor risked everything to save her, like any son trying to protect the mother who had given him life and nurtured him when he needed it most (VOY: "Renaissance Man"). Relationships Freya Early in his activated existence, the Doctor, under Kes' advice, began a search for a name. His first idea was Schweitzer, before his first away mission on the holodeck to investigate disappearing crewmembers. During the mission, he attracted the attentions of a holographic character, Freya. She fell for the Doctor, and upon her death she kissed him, dying with his name on her lips. As a consequence, the Doctor found it painful to use that name anymore, and began his search anew. (VOY: "Heroes and Demons"). Denara Pel In 2372, the Doctor encountered the Vidiian doctor Denara Pel and developed romantic feelings for her; indeed, it is implied later on that the two of them had sex. She gave him the name Shmullus, after her uncle who always made her smile. When they met again later that year, Denara again called the Doctor Shmullus, although he never used the name again despite his fondness for it; presumably, like with 'Schweitzer', he found the memories attached to the name too painful. (VOY: "Lifesigns", "Resolutions") Holo-Family The Doctor decided to create a holographic family, Doctor's Family Program Beta-Rho, in Voyager's holodeck in 2373, using the name Kenneth for himself. At first, it was a blissfully perfect, until B'Elanna Torres, after a visit, suggested adding randomness and "realism". As a result, his teenage son Jeffrey became rebellious, he had arguments with his wife Charlene, and lost the formerly close bond he had possessed with his daughter Belle. The family bonded together better shortly after, as a result of his daughter's death. After a conversation with Paris, the Doctor was persuaded not to delete the program after this incident, but to work through the death with his remaining family. (VOY: "Real Life"). Mareeza Later that year, Voyager became trapped in orbit around a planet where time advanced at a much faster rate than normal. The Doctor determined that the transition in to this accelerated timeframe could be fatal to a humanoid, and so volunteered to transport to the surface himself. It was intended that he would only spend three seconds on the planet, which equated to around three days on the surface, but attempts to transport him back to Voyager failed. Chakotay guessed that the Doctor would spend his time in the city's cultural center and he was located a short time after being transported down. However, this meant that to him, he had spent three years on the surface. He met a woman named Mareeza who he later described as his "roommate", and apparently fathered a son named Jason Tebreeze. (VOY: "Blink of an Eye") :It is not clear how the Doctor, a hologram, fathered a son. The easiest explanation is that Jason was adopted; he may or may not have been Mareeza's biological son. Lana :In an alternate timeline when it took ''Voyager 23 years to get home, the Doctor married in 2404 to a woman named Lana. He had also finally given himself a name, Joe, after Lana's grandfather. He had also become a significant figure at Starfleet Medical, and remained close friends with Reginald Barclay. Remaining fiercely loyal to his former captain, he didn't hesitate to obtain some chronexaline for Admiral Kathryn Janeway, despite not knowing why. When he found out from Reg, he informed Captain Harry Kim, who moved to apprehend her, although in the end Kim allowed the Admiral to proceed with her mission. (VOY: "Endgame"). The Mobile Emitter In 2373, Voyager encountered the ''Aeon'', under command of Captain Braxton. Due to a temporal paradox, Voyager was transported to Earth in 1996. During this mission, the Doctor obtained a piece of 29th century technology from Henry Starling, originating from the Aeon, called a mobile emitter. This device, though only a few centimeters long, was able to contain the entire EMH program and project the Doctor autonomously. After the timeline was restored and Voyager returned to the Delta Quadrant, the Doctor kept the emitter. It was quickly established that the transfer of the Doctor's program to and from the emitter would be quite easy; practically all the Doctor had to do was issue a voice command and attach the emitter to his left shoulder. This device proved to be of vital importance, and saved the crew of Voyager on numerous occassions. One of the most notable times when the emitter proved useful was shortly after the Doctor had acquired it, when he helped Captain Janeway after she manually launched a photon torpedo from within the tube. (VOY: "Future's End, Part I" and Part II). It allowed the Doctor to help crewmembers all over the ship, which was especially useful after Kes left the ship a short time later. (VOY: "The Gift") The mobile emitter helped the Doctor to watch over the ship while the crew was in stasis during a trip through a radioactive mutara class nebula. While proving to be helpful in allowing the Doctor to help Seven of Nine during this situation, the nebula affected the mobile emitter damaging its electro-optic transmitter. The Doctor, later, linked the emitter to the EPS relay network. For some time, this worked, until the EPS relays started to fail, for which the emitter went offline. (VOY: "One") Due to a transporter accident, the mobile emitter was combined with some of Seven of Nine's nanoprobes. This, combined with Ensign Mulcahey's DNA, created a new Borg drone with 29th Century technology and the mobile emitter intact as an integral part of its central nervous system. This drone, who called himself One, eventually sacrificed himself in order to save the crew of Voyager. Afterwards, the mobile emitter was salvaged and returned to the Doctor. (VOY: "Drone") On some occasions, the emittere was stolen from the Doctor and used by rogue programs, such as Dejaren, Iden (VOY: "Flesh and Blood") and the reprogrammed EMH Mark I of the USS Equinox (VOY: "Equinox, Part II"). On all occasions, however, the Doctor was able to recover the emitter, with no apparent side effects to his program. War Crimes In 2374 a group of Kyrians, lead by Tedran, beamed aboard the Voyager and took several people hostage. They were defeated when Tedran was killed by the Vaskan ambassador. Several days later Voyager was attacked by nine Kyrian ships. Several troops managed to board Voyager and stole various pieces of technology before escaping, including the Emergency Medical Hologram backup module. The devastating war between the Vaskans and Kyrians that followed was called The Voyager Encounter, as the official records were altered to portray the Kyrians as the victims and Voyager as the aggressors. 700 years later, a backup copy of the Doctor's program was reactivated in the Kyrian Museum of Heritage, and blamed for war crimes the crew of Voyager didn't commit. However, he explained the real history of the Kyrian/Vaskan conflict. Although this caused the old tensions between the two races to once again boil over, it led to a new understanding between them and eventually created a harmonious society. The copy of the Doctor became the Kyrian Surgical Chancellor for many years after these events. Eventually, however, he left his post in a one man ship with the aim of reaching the Alpha Quadrant, claiming that 'He had a longing for home'. (VOY: "Living Witness") Alternate Timelines In the alternate timeline Kes experienced when she began to travel backwards in time, the Doctor was offline for months during The Year of Hell conflict. When his program was restored, the Doctor developed a full head of hair, chose the name 'Doctor Van Gogh' (Although he briefly thought about calling himself Mozart), and tried to develop a means of extending Kes's life via use of a bio-temporal chamber, which triggered her jumps back through time. Subsequently- or previously, depending on your perspective- the Doctor of the present cured her of her sudden jumps back in time, and this timeline never came to pass. (VOY: "Before and After") In an alternate timeline where ''Voyager crashed into an ice planet while attempting to reach Earth via the use of a quantum slipstream drive, the Doctor's program was recovered fifteen years later by Chakotay and Harry Kim, who had been in the Delta Flyer when the crash took place. With the Doctor's help, they managed to devise a means of transmitting information to Seven of Nine's cortical implant before Voyager was destroyed, hoping to save the crew. When the initial plan- to stabilise the slipstream- failed, Harry and the Doctor decided their only hope was to shut down the drive; if they couldn't get Voyager home, they could at least save the crew. With the Flyer rapidly running out of power, the Doctor volunteered the use of his emitter as a power source, Harry wishing the Doctor goodbye before removing the emitter. This timeline was erased when Harry successfully transmitted the data to Seven of Nine that would shut down the slipstream drive.'' (VOY: "Timeless") Creative Outlets The Doctor took a keen interest in opera, frequently practising his singing with a holographic soprano. (VOY: "The Swarm") Seven of Nine helped with the Doctor's singing capabilities when, while being held against her will on the USS Equinox, she noticed his vocal modulations deviated by 0.30 decihertz. When they returned to Voyager, she informed him of this fact and he agreed to meet her on the holodeck: "Just you, me, and a tuning fork." (VOY: "Equinox, Part II"). This humorous moment implies the adoption of some universal scale or temperament, or at least a standard agreed frequency for a single reference note, at some time after the 21st century. Not that singing was the only creative outlet for our holographic doctor. He worked hard to create a holographic novel, called Photons Be Free, based on an EMH on the starship Vortex, and the treatment he faced from the organic members of the crew. The characters and the environment were strongly based on the crew of Voyager. After discovering his friends were concerned about his interpretation of them, he agreed to change it, despite the weeks of work involved. His publisher didn't appreciate the delay, and so published the original version. In an argument with the publisher, the Doctor was told he had no rights, as although he may be the author, as a hologram, he isn't a sentient being. During the subsequent debate, Janeway, Tuvok, Seven, Barclay and Kim spoke on the Doctor's behalf: Tuvok pointed out that the Doctor had created an original piece of work; Seven explained how the Doctor helped her develop as a person; Barclay compared the Doctor's aid to Zimmerman as a son seeking his father's approval; Kim explained how the Emergency Command Hologram suroutines represented a human desire to change; and Janeway cited the Doctor's defiance of her orders as a human action, something that a mere hologram- designed to obey orders- couldn't have done. At the conclusion of the 'trial', the Doctor was found to have the same rights as a non-holographic author, and was allowed to recall the original version of the holonovel in favor of the new one when it was ready. (VOY: "Author, Author") Memorable Quotes "Please state the nature of the medical emergency." : - VOY: "Caretaker, Part I"; programmed as the opening statement upon activation, although his program was later altered so that he was no longer required to say it every time he was turned on. "20 ccs nitric acid. A little proverbial salt in the wound." (Spoken by the Doctor character in a holonovelic work programmed by Seska to kill whoever was running the program at the time.) : - VOY: "Worst Case Scenario" "Who would have thought that this eclectic group of voyagers could actually become a family? Starfleet, Maquis, Klingon, Talaxian, Hologram, Borg, even Mr. Paris..." : - VOY: "Year of Hell, Part I" "Divine intervention is... unlikely." : - VOY: "Future's End, Part II" "The computer sounds like it needs a stimulant." : - VOY: "One" "Activate the photonic cannon." : - VOY: "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" ;See also: I'm a doctor, not a... Background The Doctor was played by actor Robert Picardo. Many people, including Picardo himself, were initially against Brannon Braga's idea of the mobile emitter, believing the Doctor's limitations was one of the appeals of the character. However, Picardo has since relished the opportunities for growth to his character due to the Doctor's new-found mobility, without noticing any negative impact to his appeal to the fans; Picardo subsequently apologized to Braga. Robert Picardo also appears as the Doctor in Borg-4D, at Star Trek: The Experience, and also portrayed other EMHs in Star Trek: First Contact, and DS9: "Doctor Bashir, I Presume". Apocrypha Robert Picardo has written a book based on and as told by his character, named "The Hologram's Handbook". Picardo goes into depth about how he felt about various experiences while aboard Voyager, such as feeling "betrayed" by Kes when she extended the length of his bout with the flu, as well as genuine and helpful advice for any holograms finding it hard to fit in with 'organics'. In the '' Voyager'' relaunch book series, the Doctor became a famous proponent of holographic rights, and eventually joined a Federation "think tank" with Seven of Nine. In the "Borg Invasion 4D" attraction at Star Trek: The Experience, The Doctor is the lead physician onboard Copernicus Station, on the edge of the Alpha and Delta Quadrants. While testing a group of people whos DNA apparently resists Borg nanoprobes, the station comes under assault by the Borg themselves. After the group of hopefuls is captured, and in the process of assimilation, the Doctor breaks through the hallucination that the Borg Queen is projecting and informs them that help is on the way. Minutes later, Admiral Kathryn Janeway and the USS Voyager rescue the group and bring them back to safety. The story is helped by interactive 3D projections and real live actors. In the video segments, Robert Picardo reprises his role as The Doctor, as does Kate Mulgrew and Alice Krige for Admiral Janeway and the Borg Queen, respectively. Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor de:Der Doktor fr:Le Docteur sv:Doktorn